“AI will eat software” has become the reigning market narrative. It’s a provocative narrative, and it may be directionally correct, but it’s about to mislead a lot of investors and operators. The reality from inside the software space is more nuanced — and the implications for who wins and loses are more profound.
A new AI-driven computing architecture is splitting the enterprise software landscape into two camps: vendors whose competitive moat is evaporating before their eyes, and those whose value has just multiplied. This restructuring isn’t arbitrary, nor is it a question of execution or branding. It follows a clear architectural logic most market observers haven’t yet articulated.
The interface layer — the polished UI moat most SaaS vendors spent the past two decades perfecting — is being commoditized by large language models (LLMs). Any vendor whose core value is “we make data beautiful and easy to query” is now competing with LLMs that do the same thing for free, via natural language.
But LLMs are probabilistic. They can’t produce the verifiable, auditable computations enterprise decisions require. For that, the enterprise is relying on a different kind of system entirely – one many executives and investors haven’t yet learned to recognize, and one that’s about to become the most valuable layer in enterprise software: the Deterministic Domain Authority (DDA).
